“With you,” he told me, not seeming the least bit taken aback.
“The last time I was on a roof was when Mila called me, when I thought you died.” It felt so long ago, but it was hardly a week before. “I don’t think I would’ve jumped. I found myself on top of a building when Ellie died.” I looked up into his eyes, holding his gaze. “I think I went up on that roof to find you, Jude. I’ve never felt closer to you than when I was on a roof.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. “Trista,” he said, his voice heavy with feeling. “I don’t want you hurting. Ever.”
“I don’t want to hurt anymore,” I told him honestly. I held his arms in my hands.
“Trista,” he repeated and pulled away. He cradled my face in his hands. “It’ll be too late for you soon. They’re not going to let you board the plane.”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
He nodded. “Because you’re not ready.” Silently, I heard what he didn’t say: And I want you to be ready.
I opened my mouth to tell him goodbye, but he shook his head.
“I just need you to know something. I don’t want for much, because all my needs are met. But,” he said carefully, running his fingers between mine, “I want for you. And it’s the wanting that keeps me up at night. The wanting that makes me feel incomplete. You’re not the only person who feels like they’re walking around breathing half the air they normally would, feeling like no matter what they do, they’re missing a piece that makes them whole.” He swallowed and I felt the ache in my stomach return.
It was going to hurt like a bitch, to do this. To pick up my backpack and turn away from him. I had to do it quick, rip off the bandage and walk away. My arms tingled from the very prospect of it, but I had to do it. I had to let go.
“Okay,” I said and sucked in some air. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye,” he said, his voice calm but his eyes sad. I couldn’t look into his eyes and feel his pain, because my own pain was already trapping me into a tighter space than I could breathe in.
I pulled away and stepped back until just our fingers were touching, and then I turned and walked stiffly away, as an ache bloomed bright in my heart.
Security took less than a couple minutes thanks to the ungodly hour, but the walk to my gate felt like climbing that mountain—impossible. I closed my eyes and heard Jude telling me I could do it, which was the only reason I made it to my gate just as they started calling the first boarding group.
I felt shaky then, like I felt when I hadn’t eaten in a while, so I sat down and dropped my backpack. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, that I was walking away from him again, letting this plane take me thousands of miles away from him. To a place without the Rocky Mountains, to a place without Jude. A place that wasn’t home, because Jude was.
For the fifth time that day, I struggled to remember why I was doing this.
The second boarding group was called, and I glanced at my ticket. My boarding group. But I wasn’t ready to get in line just yet, telling myself I’d be the last one on the plane. Thinking of Jude’s eyes had me pulling my notebook out of my bag. It still smelled like the mountain we’d climbed, and sticking out of the bottom was a little daisy. I plucked at it, holding it up and thinking of Ellie as I twirled its stem in my fingers.
When I looked back down, I saw pulling the stem out had pulled out a paper too. I stared at the piece of paper that stuck out, thinking that I hadn’t put anything in the notebook—there weren’t loose papers in danger of falling out.
So I flipped the notebook open, and stared at the poem I’d written Jude.
If you can’t love yourself,
let me love you enough
for the both of us.
I can’t, I tell him.
He asks why
and with a deep breath,
I say,
Because you deserve more
than empty hands
and a heart with holes.
And a heavy I can’t shake;
a burden that is mine alone.
I felt confused as I’d stared at it, remembering how I’d put it in Jude’s pocket while we stood on top of the mountain. But then I saw, through the paper, that there was writing on the back. So, I flipped the paper over and when I recognized Jude’s writing, I sucked in a breath to fill my lungs.
His mouth opens
and his heart unfolds
and he says
We deserve nothing
except what we choose.
And I choose you.
Your hands aren’t empty
when I hold them.
And your heart has no holes
when I fill them.
So accept the heavy I bring you,
in your hands
and in your heart
and I’ll help carry your heavy, too.
A drop of water hit the paper, bleeding into his words before I realized it had come from my eyes. I reread it, over and over, imprinting it in my brain.
I didn’t want to leave Jude. I didn’t want to leave Colorado. I wanted to find myself up high upon a mountain, letting the thin air fill me whole. I wasn’t perfect—I wasn’t the woman I wanted to be for him. But I realized that I didn’t need to keep waiting. Time is the biggest thief of all, it’s what Jude had said to me once. And I didn’t want to waste any more of it.
He thinks you’re worth it. My grandfather’s words hadn’t left me yet, and had seemed to replace the ones Doug had branded on my skin. I didn’t want to suffer; I didn’t want to live with an insatiable ache.
And suddenly, I didn’t ask myself again why I was leaving—because I wasn’t. Not this time.
I shoved the paper back into my pack and then zipped it up. I would have run, but my legs were barely stable as I walked away from my gate, down the long walkway to security. I followed the signs to baggage claim, my heart moving faster than the feet that carried it. It all but galloped in my chest as I strode through the entrance to baggage claim and took in the silence, the empty.
I went to arrivals, where I had been last, and looked for Jude.
The airport was filling up now, when it had been nearly empty when we arrived. But I saw him, sitting on one of the black chairs by a door.
He didn’t see me at first, because his eyes were closed and his hands were folded over themselves in his lap. I tried to imagine what he was thinking as I approached him, but then his eyes opened and I stopped thinking about everything except getting closer to him.
“Trista?” he asked, standing slowly and looking at me like I was the last person he expected to see.
“Jude.” I stopped a foot away from him, looking up at his eyes as he squinted at me. All my fears and my reasons for leaving left me in a whoosh and there was just us, facing one another as the world moved around us. I swallowed and put my hands on his chest. When his hands covered mine, I said, “I’m not ready for everything I want to be ready for. I’m not perfect. I need help. But,” I watched his eyes grow wide, “I want help. I’m ready for you to help me.” I let out a breath, feeling the words tumbling from me wildly. “I’m ready, Jude.”
THE END
Epilogue
June 30, 2016
Three years later
I waited on the path, pushing the tip of my boot into the dirt until it made a crescent moon-shaped hole. Up ahead were a group of hikers who were excitedly chatting about the prints they saw along the side of the road. I smiled to myself, because I knew how they felt.
I crouched to admire a cluster of daisies just off the path, not taking for granted the strength in my legs, the way they held me solidly until I stood back up and sucked in the air. The weather was stunning, with very few clouds in the sky, and the wind that usually accompanied this hike was dulled to a gentle breeze, making it a much easier hike than it usually was.
I heard a jingle behind me and turned, seeing Jude approach me as he stared down at his camera’s viewfinder.
“Get
anything great?” I asked.
He looked up, his concentration clearing as he smiled at me and held the camera out. In the photo was a cluster of mountain goats, hanging off the edge of the rock like it was no big deal. While most of them were looking everywhere but at Jude in the photo, one of them stared straight into his lens, his coat clean and his horns curved. He looked almost majestic, like he knew that this was his domain and we were just passing through.
I flipped through a few of the photos, checking out all the things Jude had photographed for his website, and landed on a photo of me when a breeze had picked up and sent my unrestrained hair about my head. I was laughing, with one hand holding back some of the hair and my eyes were closed.
I gave Jude that look, the one he was used to by now, when he took a photo of me that I hadn’t expected. “Thanks,” I said, but I wasn’t really upset. I looked different from when I had years before—a healthy kind of different. Shortly after I’d made the decision to stay, Jude had brought me with him to the gym a few times a week and had driven me to my therapy appointments until I’d sold my car in Maine and purchased another. I wasn’t one hundred percent over everything I’d been through and all that I had done to myself, but I was healthy and my muscles were strong. And while I still had days that the self-loathing closed in on me, they were few and far between. And most significantly, I didn’t feel as empty as I had before.
About a year before, Jude had purchased a truck and a fifth-wheel trailer, which we took on the road in the summers, living like drifters as we toured the national parks. I helped Jude with his website, but had expanded my web design business online, with Jude’s help.
“You look so . . .” He stared at the photo as he contemplated his next words and then smiled at me. “Full, of life.”
Because I was. I’d left Jude in 2011, intent on finding myself, but I’d lost her along the way. It took a while for me to realize that I was a work in progress, always learning, evolving, and that there was no end to finding myself. I was just lucky enough to have Jude along for the ride with me. I brushed my hand over his hat—the Rockies one—and grinned up at him. “I have hair in my face; you can’t even see me.” I waggled a finger in his face. “You’re full, too. So full of shit, your eyes are brown.”
Jude laughed, the sound I never tired of, and wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we continued our ascent. “Do you remember what you said five years ago?”
“How could I forget?” I stepped around a rock and looked up at the hike that awaited me. “I thought that was why you brought me here, because I said I’d be here.”
“Or maybe I just like climbing Mount Washburn. You’re an added bonus as a companion.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved against him gently. So much had changed in three years, and nearly all of it was good. I was taking better care of myself, both inside and out. I was climbing every week from the time the snow thawed until it started up again. And through all of it, Jude had been steady. Like the rock we climbed, willing to hold me up and lead me to the top. I was grateful, so grateful. My hand came to my shoulder, where his hand was resting, and I squeezed it, turning and giving him a smile that I felt down to my soul.
“Five years ago, you said you’d be climbing Mount Washburn, and now you are. Again.”
I leaned into him. “I’ll be happy if we don’t see a bear this time.”
“I’ll wrestle it, if need be.”
“Good.” I let go of his hand to stop and admire the tracks near our feet, preserved in mud that had dried over. “Your wrestling skills may come in handy, because these look like bear tracks.” While we were paused, I pulled off my windbreaker and shoved it in my pack.
Jude stooped to run his fingers over the tracks. “Little bear,” he said and looked around. “Which means its momma is near it too.”
“I’d like to make it to the top before we run into her,” I said, heavily hinting that Jude stop admiring the tracks so we could move on.
He stood and faced me, the shadow of his cap washing down his face. “Let’s go then,” he said, running his fingers over the ink along my collarbone. It was my surprise to him before we embarked this summer on our trip. Just one word, that meant so much to us both: Ready. Jude had loved it so much that he’d had it tattooed over his chest, above the scars that decorated it like war wounds. It was hard to think of him as even the slightest bit weak when he carried so much of me through the last handful of years. “Let me know if you need a break,” I said seriously, looking him square in the eye.
“I will,” he promised and grabbed my hand as we climbed the rest of the way.
Once at the top, Jude paused against a giant rock to take a breather. He didn’t often get winded on these hikes, thanks to us taking them slow. But when he did, I was always reminded of how important his health was. When I thought about Colin and how hard he’d always pushed himself, I worried even more about Jude.
“I’m okay,” he’d tell me, but it was still hard to think about the fact that he could end up like that, spending his final breaths hooked up on machines, in a bed that had held many bodies before him. But I mostly shoved that to the back of my mind, when Jude’s words repeated in my head like an echo. “Fear is healthy. It’s when you’re drowning in it that it’s not. Fear grounds you, but it can bury you too. Take a little bit, but then push on.”
So I did.
The wind howled and people around us laughed as their hats were sent up in the air. Jude pulled out his camera and captured the moment, frozen in time on his viewfinder. He turned to me on a laugh and our hands touched. He never stopped reaching for me, always reminding me he was there, waiting for me to figure it all out. My hands went to his like we existed on the same magnetic field.
“Ready?” he asked, holding up his camera.
Smiling, I nodded, and he wrapped an arm around me as he had five years earlier, shielding me partially from the bite of the wind. He held his camera up, pointing it at our faces as he took the first snap. He pulled it back and looked at it, but he looked disappointed somehow.
“What’s wrong?”
He turned the camera to me so I could see our photo. We were both smiling, our cheeks pink as my hair swirled around us both.
“I still don’t see what’s wrong.” I turned to him, looking at him curiously.
“The last time, you were wearing this hat.” He pulled it off his head and put it on mine, smoothing down the hair that hung out of it.
“We don’t need to be exactly the same as last time,” I told him, but held on to the hat and the memory it gave me.
“We couldn’t be the same people,” he said. He shoved one hand into his pocket and looked at me. “We’ve grown so much, you and me. Separately and together.”
“Mostly together.” I smiled at him and brushed away the hair that slapped against my face from the force of the wind this high up.
“Mostly together.” He nodded, but he stopped smiling as he stepped closer and spun my baseball hat around so that I was wearing it backwards. He pressed his forehead against mine and I wrapped an arm through his as I closed my eyes and relished this moment, a moment I couldn’t have fathomed five years earlier, when we’d stood in this very spot together. He pulled away and I missed his warmth, but his mouth was covering mine and he kissed me hard enough to have me gripping his arms for balance. Then he pulled back, a breath away, and said against my lips, “I want to keep growing with you. Let me love you, Trista, through all of our tomorrows.”
I opened my eyes and in his hand was a ring. In his eyes was his love, spilling over. On his lips were promises that I never dreamed of. “Yes,” I said immediately, staring into his soulful eyes, eyes that had inspired a hundred poems.
He didn’t say anything as he slid the ring over my finger and then curled my fingers so he could warm them with his whole hand. But I felt the shake in his hand and wrapped my arm around his neck, pulling him down so I could press my mouth against his. “Are you ready to chase adventures
with me?” I asked against his lips as we stood still in that moment of time.
He laughed into my mouth and I felt his smile curve my cheek. “I’m ready.”
Author Note
When I decided to write this story, I initially shied away from the subject of bulimia. Not because I didn’t want to talk about it—I did. But I hesitated writing about it because it’s a tough conversation to have, as an author and as someone who struggled with her weight for years, and still does.
The first time someone made a joke about my weight, I was eleven years old. Uncomfortable by the way the group of friends stared at me, I just turned away and pretended to be distracted by something else, to avoid letting them see how that made me feel. I was always on the skinny side growing up, so much so that my family nicknamed me Toothpick. After experiencing some hard years in elementary school, I found myself struggling to figure out my place in the world once middle school hit and I began to gain weight. One of my good friends committed suicide and I watched my remaining friends forging friendships with other people, and slowly, one-by-one, they left me until one day, I realized I was sitting alone in the lunch room.
Ironically enough, it was after I watched a video in health class about eating disorders that I decided to see how purging made me feel. At school, I would eat my lunch as usual before going to the bathroom and vomiting it all up. After school, I’d eat an entire loaf of bread before purging while I watched endless segments on some home shopping channel. My father, who I lived with during the school year, was at work until late at night most nights. it was easy for me to hide the fact that I was slowly shrinking, becoming so gaunt that I was five-foot-eight and wearing girls’ size seven swimsuits when I should have been shopping in the juniors’ section.
I abhorred feeling full. Whenever I’d start to feel shame for who I saw myself as, the feelings would build and build until I nearly choked on them. I felt like purging was the only way I had control over myself, and each time I vomited I had a false sense of relief that my feelings were gone, too.
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